Okay, I’m not asking everyone to be a scientist, but something in the news makes me think of a line from a Seinfeld episode. I’m probably paraphrasing here, but the essence is this. When a woman tells Jerry that she uses email, he says, “What are you, some kind of scientist?”
That I would think of this today, October 29, 2019, on the fiftieth birthday of the Internet, is a happy coincidence. I’m sure that like Jerry, there was a time when I knew little about email. I do, after all, remember when my university department acquired its first tabletop computer, a Commodore 64 and how I thought, in connecting it to a weather station, that it was remarkable for its speed. Ah! Those giddy days of high-speed computing and interconnectivity. We thought we had become the epitome of expansiveness. We knew how the Wright brothers felt.
But back to that something in the news that reminded me of the Seinfeld scene. StudyFinds (online*) reports that in a survey of 3,000 British adults, 17% of them think “Earth” is the name of our galaxy, about 20% think the Sun is a planet, and 10% think the Solar System has 12 planets. No doubt, for the surveyed Brits, someone who knows that the galaxy is called the Milky Way and that the Sun is a star is probably some kind of scientist.
Apparently, for many the extent of place is a difficult concept, and that means, also, the extent of space. It’s as though some, if not all, people live in a small parish. I’ll give you an example. Say, you argue that there is a difference between matriculating at a large university and at a small college, that the larger institution provides greater access to a model of the world as a whole. True, there are more people in the large university, but what is the size of the circle of friends and acquaintances for any student? Does that circle extend much beyond the chance meetings of people outside the discipline of choice, outside the dorm floor or the dorm itself, outside a team or Greek environment? I’m guessing 300 friends and acquaintances at most for students of both large and small institutions. But my guess is, according to some studies, wrong. That circle is closer to 150. At least, that seems to be the estimate according to the Social Brain Hypothesis (formerly the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis). Robin Dunbar tied brain size to social unit size and found that 150 is the number for a circle of casual friends, though it could extend to 250 for the most social among us. Fifty of those in the circle of 150 would be “close friends.” Fifteen is the number of people one relies on for sympathy in times of need or for confidentiality. Five is the size of the immediate support group.**
“Come on, now. We have email; we have social media. We’re interconnected. Why, I have friends I don’t even know,” you say.
No, bottom line: We ain’t as cosmopolitan as we think we are just because we have social media and email. Living in a large group, be it university or city, doesn’t for anyone extend that group to the 300 I might have postulated. Dunbar even suggests that those modern connections might make us less social in the long run, a thought you probably have every time you witness two teens walking side-by-side but texting others rather than talking to each other.
Let me, in a violation of good writing practice, repeat, lest you think I’ve run into a different subject. I’m not asking everyone to be a scientist. Instead, I am pointing out the cosmopolitanism of parochialism. Yes, everywhere we look, from the largest cities to the isolated farmlands, we can find some form of parochialism. “But, you say, “surely, you’re not including me, an urbanized educated city- or suburb-dweller in that category?”
“Yes, in a way, I am. But don’t consider it an insult. Consider, instead, that those Brits who don’t understand Earth’s place in the Solar System or the Solar System’s place in the galaxy, or, much less, the Milky Way’s place in the universe, aren’t dumb. They are just limited both by how much they can know and by how much they need to know because it is relevant to their personal lives.
Looks as though all of us live in a local church parish, attend parochial school, and have concepts limited by a brain of finite size and computing power. We all have those I-know-that-face-but-can’t-remember-the-name moments. We all have misconceptions about the nature of Nature, and none of us, no matter how sophisticated we deem ourselves, can conceptualize a universe that might be infinite and that has probably more than the two trillion galaxies of recent estimates. Little Earth is, in fact and for all practical purposes, the whole universe. And more than that, even our local “parish” society is a Milky Way that we cannot fully know.
And now, it’s Judgment Time: The next time you see anyone on TV cast aspersions on someone or some group because he, she, or they are “unsophisticated,” think of that little parish of like-minded people with whom anyone typically associates. Everyone lives in a rather small universe; everyone’s “planet” is a whole galaxy to him or her. Those who claim cosmopolitanism are probably among the most parochial among us. And it doesn’t take a scientist to understand that.
*Renner, Ben. Spced Out: 1 in 6 Adults Believes The Entire Galaxy Is Called ‘Earth.’ ahttps://www.studyfinds.org/spaced-out-1-in-6-adults-believes-entire-galaxy-called-earth/
Renner reports that the survey was sponsored by Google Pixel 4. Accessed October 29, 2019.
**Konnikova, Maria. The Limits of Friendship. The New Yorker. 7 Oct 2014. Online at https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-media-affect-math-dunbar-number-friendships Accessed October 29, 2019. I recommend the article and
a YouTube video on the Dunbar number: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qjRG6iV8M
That I would think of this today, October 29, 2019, on the fiftieth birthday of the Internet, is a happy coincidence. I’m sure that like Jerry, there was a time when I knew little about email. I do, after all, remember when my university department acquired its first tabletop computer, a Commodore 64 and how I thought, in connecting it to a weather station, that it was remarkable for its speed. Ah! Those giddy days of high-speed computing and interconnectivity. We thought we had become the epitome of expansiveness. We knew how the Wright brothers felt.
But back to that something in the news that reminded me of the Seinfeld scene. StudyFinds (online*) reports that in a survey of 3,000 British adults, 17% of them think “Earth” is the name of our galaxy, about 20% think the Sun is a planet, and 10% think the Solar System has 12 planets. No doubt, for the surveyed Brits, someone who knows that the galaxy is called the Milky Way and that the Sun is a star is probably some kind of scientist.
Apparently, for many the extent of place is a difficult concept, and that means, also, the extent of space. It’s as though some, if not all, people live in a small parish. I’ll give you an example. Say, you argue that there is a difference between matriculating at a large university and at a small college, that the larger institution provides greater access to a model of the world as a whole. True, there are more people in the large university, but what is the size of the circle of friends and acquaintances for any student? Does that circle extend much beyond the chance meetings of people outside the discipline of choice, outside the dorm floor or the dorm itself, outside a team or Greek environment? I’m guessing 300 friends and acquaintances at most for students of both large and small institutions. But my guess is, according to some studies, wrong. That circle is closer to 150. At least, that seems to be the estimate according to the Social Brain Hypothesis (formerly the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis). Robin Dunbar tied brain size to social unit size and found that 150 is the number for a circle of casual friends, though it could extend to 250 for the most social among us. Fifty of those in the circle of 150 would be “close friends.” Fifteen is the number of people one relies on for sympathy in times of need or for confidentiality. Five is the size of the immediate support group.**
“Come on, now. We have email; we have social media. We’re interconnected. Why, I have friends I don’t even know,” you say.
No, bottom line: We ain’t as cosmopolitan as we think we are just because we have social media and email. Living in a large group, be it university or city, doesn’t for anyone extend that group to the 300 I might have postulated. Dunbar even suggests that those modern connections might make us less social in the long run, a thought you probably have every time you witness two teens walking side-by-side but texting others rather than talking to each other.
Let me, in a violation of good writing practice, repeat, lest you think I’ve run into a different subject. I’m not asking everyone to be a scientist. Instead, I am pointing out the cosmopolitanism of parochialism. Yes, everywhere we look, from the largest cities to the isolated farmlands, we can find some form of parochialism. “But, you say, “surely, you’re not including me, an urbanized educated city- or suburb-dweller in that category?”
“Yes, in a way, I am. But don’t consider it an insult. Consider, instead, that those Brits who don’t understand Earth’s place in the Solar System or the Solar System’s place in the galaxy, or, much less, the Milky Way’s place in the universe, aren’t dumb. They are just limited both by how much they can know and by how much they need to know because it is relevant to their personal lives.
Looks as though all of us live in a local church parish, attend parochial school, and have concepts limited by a brain of finite size and computing power. We all have those I-know-that-face-but-can’t-remember-the-name moments. We all have misconceptions about the nature of Nature, and none of us, no matter how sophisticated we deem ourselves, can conceptualize a universe that might be infinite and that has probably more than the two trillion galaxies of recent estimates. Little Earth is, in fact and for all practical purposes, the whole universe. And more than that, even our local “parish” society is a Milky Way that we cannot fully know.
And now, it’s Judgment Time: The next time you see anyone on TV cast aspersions on someone or some group because he, she, or they are “unsophisticated,” think of that little parish of like-minded people with whom anyone typically associates. Everyone lives in a rather small universe; everyone’s “planet” is a whole galaxy to him or her. Those who claim cosmopolitanism are probably among the most parochial among us. And it doesn’t take a scientist to understand that.
*Renner, Ben. Spced Out: 1 in 6 Adults Believes The Entire Galaxy Is Called ‘Earth.’ ahttps://www.studyfinds.org/spaced-out-1-in-6-adults-believes-entire-galaxy-called-earth/
Renner reports that the survey was sponsored by Google Pixel 4. Accessed October 29, 2019.
**Konnikova, Maria. The Limits of Friendship. The New Yorker. 7 Oct 2014. Online at https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-media-affect-math-dunbar-number-friendships Accessed October 29, 2019. I recommend the article and
a YouTube video on the Dunbar number: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qjRG6iV8M
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